One possible deployment scenario for fifth generation (5G) New Radio (NR) system architecture uses high frequency (HF) (6 gigahertz (GHz) and above, such as millimeter wavelength (mmWave)) operating frequencies to exploit greater available bandwidth and less interference then what is available at the congested lower frequencies. However, pathloss is a significant issue. Beamforming may be used to overcome the high pathloss.
However, even with beamforming, channels between devices, such as a user equipment (UE) and a next generation (NG) NodeB (gNB), are fragile and are prone to blockage, thereby becoming unreliable. In some situations, the best remedy for an unreliable channel is to replace the unreliable channel with another channel that is more reliable. In order to performing beam recovery, the unreliable channel needs to be detected and a beam failure recovery request (BFRQ) reported.
Therefore, there is a need for mechanisms supporting BFRQ reporting.